Optimization

These optimizations are Cromwell-specific functionality which can be triggered from within your workflow descriptions.

You can think of them as ways of telling Cromwell that the task or workflow has a certain property which allows Cromwell to do something clever.

Portability Warning

Note that these optimizations are outside of the language specifications and so not all workflow engines will respect them. In order to maintain portability of workflows, write defensively with respect to these optimizations:

  • Remember that a Cromwell instance might have your optimization turned off.
  • Remember that your workflow might need to run on a version of Cromwell which predates the optimization.
  • Remember that to share your WDL most widely, it will need to be able to run on engines other than Cromwell - and those engines won't necessarily respect these optimizations.